I was digging through archives in the upper starboard side of My Blue Heaven earlier today, in search of some of the Pitfall treasures I mentioned in Chapter 5. I didn't find them, but I did stumble onto a box of Lunger treasures...items involving my all time best noun--mostly items he has sent me over the years. Lunger would have been my best noun from high school had he not gotten expelled, so instead he became my best noun outside of school--and ultimately, my soulmate as the years progressed.

Lunger was ultimately expelled from our high school for wearing a cape, a creepy green samurai mask, and attacking an unsuspecting classroom with a fire extinguisher conveniently provided by the Anchorage School District (though in their defense, they DID keep it locked away in a glass case). But that was only the icing on the cake...Lunger was very close to expulsion even before that. You see, Lunger was a bit like Ferris Bueller, but he took it to a whole new level. Lunger had a very difficult sophomore year at East Anchorage High School: Three of his grandmothers had died, and a few of his houses had burned down--all within a single semester. Not only was the vice principal and head of security less than compassionate toward Lunger's tragedies, he even became suspicious that Lunger was just finding excuses to not attend school. Apparently the fire extinguisher/costuming incident was more than dead grandmothers and ashes of previous homes could explain, so Lunger attended East Anchorage High School no more after that.

Over the years, Lunger and I have endured many experiences together...from yard animal hunting to KISS concerts, to dissecting Star Wars movies, to solving the mysteries of the universe upon the kitchen counters in My Blue Heaven (which I purchased from him in September of 2000)--and everything in between. I could easily write a Moby Dick-sized novel about the times we spent together, but I won't. I will only say, for the time being, that he has often been the Jonathan to my David, the Sonny to my Cher, the Butthead to my Beavis.

The picture that precedes these words is one I highly dislike for a couple reasons, but I adore for many others. It is from Lunger's wedding in May of 2005, which took place in a seedy chapel in La$ Vega$--complete with an Elvis impersonator performing the legal ceremony. I was his best noun, of course--the one wearing the button up album cover from Iron Maiden's "Live After Death" double LP. That crooked smile of mine is one of the reasons you rarely see me smile in selfies--I inherited that from my maternal grandfather. And yes, I was still working a white collar job at that time, so I had short hair and pretended most of the time to be quite the professional. I always find a way to digress and regress, don't I? Maybe there's a lesson in that for me somewhere? (Yes, I'm playing on that theme now that I've discovered it, lol). H was a few months pregnant with Weasel at the time that picture was taken--and she was there too...we were already having "relationship" issues, which is why I looked so fatigued--and much older than I do now--in that picture despite my unbridled joy that allowed the camera to capture the crooked smile my grandfather handed down to me.

So why the title "Lungarelli & Lee Lung Cho" for this chapter? My soulmate and I had a great fondness for the movie "Tombstone," and we both particularly admired Val Kilmer's role as Doc Holliday. We began calling each other "Lunger" because of it, and the campy insult took on a life of its own...that led us to start coming up with variations of the name as sort of a creative exercise. "Lungarelli" became the preferred version of me, and "Lee Lung Cho" became the preferred version of my best noun. There were many other variations, mind you--Senor Lungero, Monsieur Lungios, Lungenheimer, Von Lungen--those are a few that pop into my head as I type this--but the variations used in the title of this chapter became our standards. To this day, even Weasel and Butterfly don't know my actual best noun's name; they only know him as "Lunger." It's not that his real name is confidential, that's just how it worked out--and they've never asked. For the record, his name is Chris Kauffman...this is the first time I've ever revealed this on the internet in any way. As a matter of trivia, Weasel's legal name almost contained umlauts because of Lee Lung Cho, but H would have no part of it.

Should any wonder, my soulmate Lunger and I rarely speak these days. There is no tension between us--whenever we speak again we will pick up where we left off. One of the things that makes us soulmates is that there are never any conditions. He lives with his wife in Brazil now, and their son Noah Moon will turn 2 years old next month. I hear from his mother that they will be spending some time in the United States next year, so I'm hoping we'll catch up. I suppose I'd better start coming up with "Lunger" names for his toddler before he arrives huh? I can't use "Little Lunger" because he already used that when Weasel was born (it is sung--not spoken--from the AC/DC song "Little Lover").

If you take the time to read this, and feel compelled to steal the picture from it...I have no issue with that, but please don't share it online in any way--let it be for you. That picture of me is not the way people like to think of KeV Atomic, and I'd not have you ruin their happy illusion.